New possibilities abound at South Congregational Church in Centerville. Pastor Bruce Epperly describes his vision for the church and community: “We designed an Advent Christmas program that is diverse, reflecting the broad spirit of a church like ours, global as well as traditional, innovative while taking seriously the traditions of a church that’s been around here for 200 years. We are a loving, accepting community, open to possibilities. We welcome all sorts of people and families here and we are dreaming in the New Year of more ways to reach out to the community.”

Sunday, Dec. 1, initiates the Advent season with a Jazz Communion Service at 10 a.m. Advent, in the church calendar, is the time of waiting, preparation, meditation for the coming of the Christ child. Bruce describes Advent “as the not yet – what is waiting to be born.” He understands jazz to also be about “anticipation and struggle, celebration and lament.” Music Minister Pamela Wannie adds, “Jazz is about dissonance. You hear that dissonance and it makes you wait for the resolution. Like Advent, it’s all about anticipation. How is this note going to be resolved? Is it going to go where we think or somewhere different?”

Pam embraces this vision as she describes how the jazz services evolved: “Last summer a jazz service was added from a seed planted by a member of our choir, and it was well-received by both our wider community and our congregation. Now the first Sunday of every other month features jazz music. The June service included Duke Ellington’s ‘Come Sunday’ and music by Horace Silver. This October the Jazz Service fell on World Communion Day so we combined African, Brazilian, Spanish music. It was so much fun to put together. It is an honor to do world music and to celebrate the ethnic and diverse backgrounds on Cape and in the congregation. We often use local musicians to add color to our services.”

Pam’s interest in jazz was inspired by the Big Band era music her dad loved to hear. She loves performing jazz in worship as it facilitates a deep inner process of being in the moment. The music flows through her hands and speaks to her heart.

While Bruce enjoys the simple pleasures of sitting at a café table for jazz brunch at Bleu restaurant in Mashpee, as a young adult he was drawn to the cultural roots of jazz and blues through legendary African-American theologian Howard Thurman, with whom he studied. Thurman was Dean of Marsh Chapel and theologian at Boston University and wrote on the African-American spirituals. He served as a spiritual advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My own interest in jazz began as a teenager, prone to melancholy. I found deep solace in listening to an old Billie Holiday record. Years later, I took a train to revel in the Blues at the Cookery, with 80-year-old Alberta Hunter. While Duke Ellington once remarked that jazz was like “the kind of man you wouldn’t want to bring home to your daughter,” he himself was a deeply religious man.

Bruce speaks of the lament, the challenge in Advent and in jazz:

“Advent is not a glib season, not for the fainthearted and jazz isn’t music for the fainthearted. While the Advent scriptures give us the hope of the lion and the lamb together, the flowers blooming in the desert, and swords being beaten into plowshares, it begs the question: Where is it?

“We have homeless people here on Cape, a dysfunctional government, more money spent on defense than on children, more depression in these dark months. Where have we repented our foolish ways? Advent, traditionally, is focused on meditation and contemplation; I have friends who fast during Advent. There’s also this lament in jazz.”

Pam described the Advent Jazz Worship music as “traditional Advent hymns with a twist:” “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” a swing version of “Mary’s Boy Child,” and a merging of “Christmas Time is Here” with “It’s Christmas, It’s Love.”

There will be a “Hand Bell Choir Service” Dec. 8, a “Healing Service” Dec. 12, “Celtic Service” Dec. 15, and a “Blue Christmas/Longest Night Service: A time of Healing for Those who Grieve” at 6 p.m. on Dec. 18. Musical instruments at the jazz service include piano, guitar, drum, percussion, and fiddles, Irish pen whistle, bagpipes, hammered-dulcimer for Celtic worship.

On the afternoon of Dec. 1, Dr. Epperly will give a talk and sign copies of his latest book of daily devotions, The Spirit of Advent: Days of Awe and Wonder at 4 p.m.

These inspiring words of Howard Thurman sum up the beauty of music and the healing power of jazz: “Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing angels."

Stop by South Congregational if you love music and desire to tap into the deeper meanings of Advent/Christmas. You may discover a new possibility, a new hope for the season.

South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ is located at 565 Main St., Centerville. Contact 508-775-8332 or southchurch.homestead.com.